LIFE & TIMES: Tom Selleck

The 73-year-old is currently starring in NYPD drama Blue Bloods (9pm, Sky Atlantic), the latest leading role in a steady career that dates back to the late 1960s…

Thomas William Selleck was born in 1945 in Detroit to Martha, a housewife, and Robert, a carpenter turned property investor – they were married for nearly 60 years, until Robert’s death in 2001. Martha, later president of the Motion Picture Mothers organisation, died in 2017, aged 96. Tom has two brothers, Robert and Daniel, and one sister – Martha.

At the University of Southern California (on a basketball scholarship), Tom studied business, worked as a model and was bitten by the acting bug – before being drafted into the military. During the Vietnam War, he served in the California National Guard. On TV, a role on The Rockford Files got him noticed (he was a big James Garner fan), but it was Magnum, PI that made Tom a big name – even if the timings forced him to miss out on starring in Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Tom declined to be involved in the Magnum reboot currently in the works, but has given it his ‘blessing’. These days, he is also known to millions as detective Jesse Stone – the tenth TV movie is due out this year. His Friends role as Monica’s boyfriend was meant to be brief, but ran to ten episodes – and an Emmy nomination. He has a stepson, Kevin (an exmember of rock band Tonic) from his first marriage, and a show jumper daughter, Hannah, from his second.